4 PASSENGER PIGEON. 



squab Pigeons, which had been precipitated from above, and 

 on which herds of hogs were fattening. Hawks, Buzzards, and 

 Eagles, were sailing about in great numbers, and seizing the 

 squabs from their nests at pleasure; while from twenty feet up- 

 wards to the tops of the trees the view through the woods pre- 

 sented a perpetual tumult of crowding and fluttering multitudes 

 of Pigeons, their wings roaring like thunder; mingled with 

 the frequent crash of falling timber; for now the axe-men were 

 at work cutting down those trees that seemed to be most crowd- 

 ed with nests; and contrived to fell them in such a manner, 

 that in their descent they might bring down several others; by 

 which means the falling of one large tree sometimes produce 

 two hundred squabs, little inferior in size to the old ones, and 

 almost one mass of fat. On some single trees upwards of one 

 hundred nests were found, each containing one. young only, a 

 circumstance in the history of this bird not generally known to 

 naturalists. It was dangerous to walk under these flying and 

 fluttering millions, from the frequent fall of large branches, bro- 

 ken down by the weight of the multitudes above, and which in 

 their descent often destroyed numbers of the birds themselves; 

 while the clothes of those engaged in traversing the woods were 

 completely covered with the excrements of the Pigeons. 



These circumstances were related to me by many of the most 

 respectable part of the community in that quarter; and were 

 confirmed in part by what I myself witnessed. I passed for se- 

 veral miles through this same breeding place, where every tree 

 was spotted with nests, the remains of those above described. 

 In many instances, I counted upwards of ninety nests on a 

 single tree; but the Pigeons had abandoned this place for ano- 

 ther, sixty or eighty miles off, towards Green river, where they 

 were said at that time to be equally numerous. From the great 

 numbers that were constantly passing over head, to or from that 

 quarter, I had no doubt of the truth of this statement. The mast 

 had been chiefly consumed in Kentucky, and the Pigeons, every 

 morning, a little before sun-rise, set out for the Indiana territory, 

 the nearest part of which was about sixty miles distant. Many 



